Release
by coolcatz
Summary: Catherine finds a release.


disclaimer...no, i do not own them. i could have owned them. and you. and your little dog too. if i had accepted a certain proposal. but, i didn't, so cbs and alliance and co still own them

spoilers...vague, so not really

a/n: seems to me someone at tptb wants to tear cath down, thought i'd save them the trouble.

Catherine sat alone in the back of her Denali looking out into the vastness of the desert. She had to make a decision and it wasn't an easy one, one that would completely alter her future. Things had been so hard lately. Lindsey. Her mother. Sam. Her job. Her promotion. Her lost friendship with Gil. Nick. It was never-ending. Problems coming so fast at her that she couldn't even begin to comprehend all of them. All she could do was react. And, yet, they still kept coming faster and faster, overlapping and becoming part of each other. She felt as if the whole world was ganging up on her and she had nowhere to hide. She had felt this way when she was younger and she ran just as fast as she could then, only to end up in a cheap motel room waiting on the latest line to release her from it all. And today she wanted to feel that way again.

Getting the coke had been easy enough. The last crime scene she had worked had been the home of a dealer and it was littered with it. There was so much of the substance on the property that the small amount she took would never be missed, besides no one she worked with would think her capable of such a thing. She was working the office by herself, photographing and collecting the evidence. She documented every last ounce with the exception of what she took. Just to be sure, she had left a small amount from the stash in place so that no void would be noticed when reviewing the evidence. She slipped the small baggy inside her shoe about halfway through. She gathered the remaining evidence, packed her kit up, and walked out to her Denali and left. No one on the scene noticed anything unusual.

At the lab she went about business as usual, turning some evidence over to trace, other to DNA and still other to prints. Then it was back to her office to piece together what had happened to the victim. Two hours later she had a good idea of what had happened, a drug deal gone bad. Three hours later, she had her preliminary report completed and was on her way home.

She didn't want it or so she kept telling herself. But it called to her day after day after day. The simple meditation involved in running a line. The care with which she would crush it into a fine powder then line up each and every last particle. The moment of inhalation. And the exhilaration that followed as the coke worked its way thru her system. So simple. So freeing. It had been so long without it. Yet she'd fought its seductive call for two months. Two long, stressful, agonizing months.

Her body shook with desire for the coke. She needed it so badly. The tightness in her chest, the hollow feeling of desire in her throat. Nothing in this world would satisfy her now. Nothing would stop her, save herself. She lifted up the bottle of Smirnoff and took another long drink, the alcohol subtly numbing her senses. She wouldn't be able to go thru with this if she was sober. She wasn't even sure how much she'd had to drink. She'd started with wine at breakfast. Drank beer all the way out into the desert. Now she had nearly finished the vodka. But if it took all the alcohol in Nevada in order for her to gain the strength to do this line then she was going to drink it.

Every time she thought she was ready for her line she thought about Lindsey and she couldn't do it. Every damned time. And every time, she took another swig from the bottle. Her daughter was everything to her. Lindsey was the reason she had stopped doing the coke in the first place. She was the reason for her going to college and getting a degree. She was the reason for the day in, day out struggle that Catherine went through.

Her mind went back to that morning. Traffic was unusually heavy for this time of the day. Her normal commute was about 20 minutes. Today, she was already at 35 minutes and still had 10 miles more to go. If traffic didn't start moving soon she wouldn't be home in time to see Lindsey off to school. Looking around she determined that the interstate was not going anywhere fast. She also saw an exit up ahead. It would be a few miles out of her way, but she would probably get home a lot quicker cutting through a few subdivisions.

Twenty minutes later she arrived home just in time to give Lindsey a kiss on the cheek as she was getting on the bus. "Bite me," Lindsey grimaced at her mother's actions. Catherine watched the bus drive off and then went into the house, tears falling from Lindsey's words.

She stared out into the desert again, not really seeing it, the tears coming again. The only thing she saw was the horrible life she had come to live. He ex-husband was dead, his murderer never caught. She'd blown up the lab. She had worked so hard on so many different levels to become the person she was only to find she was still nothing more than the person she tried to escape from. And, truth be told, that is who she wanted most to be.

The vodka was long gone. So was the beer. She looked at the lines of coke, desire clouding her blue eyes. Slowly she lowered her head down to the small mirror laying in the floorboard of the back of the Denali. Her eyes closed in anticipation as she inhaled the beautiful white powder. A feeling of triumph enveloped her as she laid back to wait on the effects of the substance to hit her system.

She lay there, enjoying the release that the coke had given her. Thankful, that for once, she didn't give a damn about anything. The sun had begun to set and she watched as the stars slowly made their appearance in the night sky. And the release she had longed for was starting to fade. Memories of why she was there began to flood back to her mind. The second line was quickly consumed and she went back to that place of bliss as stars danced above her. The first line had been incredible. It had been so long and it was such a release when the drug hit her system. But the second line. The numbness, not just in her nose, but in her mind. This is what she was looking for. The complete and total freedom that had eluded her since Eddie's death. Unfortunately, it was all too brief and now it was time for the third line, old habits returning easier than she would have thought.

Her life was perfect now. She could go on without the guilt, without the doubt, without the pain. As long as she had the coke, she could go on.


End file.
